Maria Klenova (or Klyonova) | |
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| Мари́я Васи́льевна Клёнова | |
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| Born | (1898-08-12)12 August 1898 |
| Died | 6 August 1976(1976-08-06) (aged 77) |
| Known for | Seabed mapping |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Marine geology |
| Institutions | Shirshov Institute of Oceanology Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union |
| Doctoral advisor | Vladimir Vernadsky |
| Notes | |
A founder of Russian marine science and the first to fully map the seabed of theBarents Sea. | |
Maria Vasilyevna Klenova (orKlyonova) (Russian:Мари́я Васи́льевна Клёнова; 12 August 1898 – 6 August 1976)[1] was a Russian and Sovietmarine geologist and one of the founders of Russian marine science and contributor to the first Soviet Antarctic atlas.[2]
Klenova studied to become a professor and later on worked as a member of the Council for Antarctic Research of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. During that time she spent nearly thirty years researching in the Polar Regions and become the first woman scientist to do research inAntarctica. She joined in theFirst Soviet Antarctic Expedition (1955–57) and worked withANARE (Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions) atMacquarie Island.
Maria Vasilyevna Klenova was born inIrkutsk in 1898. She was educated inYekaterinburg and moved toMoscow duringWorld War I to work in a hospital while undertaking medical studies. She travelled toSiberia to continue her medical studies during theRussian Civil War. In the early 1920s Klenova returned to Moscow and pursued a study of mineralogy. She graduated fromMoscow State University in 1924. She undertook her doctoral degree under supervisors Yakov Samoilov andVladimir Vernadsky.[3]
Klenova began her marine geology career in 1925 as a researcher aboard theSoviet research vesselPerseus, attached to the Floating Marine Research Institute (precursor to the present-dayNikolai M. Knipovich Polar Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography) established byIvan Mesyatsev in theBarents Sea and the archipelagos ofNovaya Zemlya,Spitsbergen, andFranz Josef Land. In 1933 Klenova produced the first complete seabed map of the Barents Sea. She identified and named the Barents abyssal plain (85ºN, 40ºE) after the Dutch polar explorerWillem Barentsz (or Barents) who died in 1597 on his third expedition to find the Northeast Passage.
In 1949 Klenova became a senior research associate at theShirshov Institute of Oceanology of theAcademy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. Her work included analyses of seabed geology in theAtlantic Ocean and theAntarctic, and in theCaspian,Barents andWhite Seas. In the austral summer of 1956 she traveled with a Sovietoceanographic team to map uncharted areas of the Antarctic coast.
Her contributions helped to create the first Antarctic atlas, a groundbreaking four-volume work published in the Soviet Union. Klenova spent most of her time making observations on board the RussianicebreakersOb andLena. Her group took oceanographic measurements in Antarctic and sub-Antarctic waters. Along with Klenova there were seven other women on board theOb. At that time women were rarely allowed to venture on land and had to rely on their male colleagues to collect and bring back data samples. In between these two voyages she worked at Mirny, a Russian base on theQueen Mary Coast (which is shared byAustralian andPolish Research Stations). On the way home Klenova went to Macquarie Island where she became the first female scientist ever to go ashore.[4]
Her bookGeologiya Moray (Geology of the sea) published in 1948 was the second textbook dedicated to marine geology.[5]
The Klenova Valley (84°36′N55°00′W / 84.600°N 55.000°W /84.600; -55.000), an oceanographic valley discovered in 1981–1983 by the USSRNorthern Fleet Hydrographic Expedition is named after her.[2] Klenova Seamount, about 450 km east of Salvador, Brazil (13º01.5' S, 34º15' W),Klenova crater on Venus andKlenova Peak inAntarctica[6] are also named in her honour.
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